Global design and analysis of deep sea FRP composite risers under combined environmental loads

The use of composite materials in offshore engineering for deep sea oil production riser systems has drawn considerable interest due to the potential weight savings and improvement in durability that can be achieved. The design of composite risers consists of two stages: (1) local design based on critical local load cases (LCs) to obtain the geometric configuration of the riser which will be analysed in the global design stage, and (2) global analysis of the full length composite riser under global loads including top tension force, platform motion, hydrostatic pressure, gravity, buoyancy, wave and current loads to determine and assess critical locations. This study describes the methodology, LCs, analysis procedure and results of the global design of the composite riser based on the geometries of the tubular optimised in the local design stage. The results show that a careful local design of the tubular using inclined reinforcements in addition to axial and hoop reinforcements can offer substantial weight savings and at the same time ensure that the structure is capable of withstanding the global loads applied on it.